My interest this morning is the role of the teacher in ancient Israel. Here the picture is not as clear as we might hope. The data are too limited, scholarly views too varied and what does emerge from all this is strange to our western, twentieth century educational models. But by incorporating what we know from surrounding cultures--Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan--with what we know from Israel we are able to enlarge our information and arrive at some limited conclusions. 

Perhaps an appropriate point of departure would be the attitudes expressed towards these ancient teachers, attitudes ranging from praise to contempt. Interestingly, most of the severe negative criticism came from the religious community--an issue which we will return to later--by and large, however, teachers were praised and at times envied.

For instance, one searches in vain to find the familiar (trite) western negative attitudes towards teachers expressed in such phrases as:

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

"Does your dad work?" "No, he's a college professor."

The professional dispenser of wisdom in the ancient Near East belonged to a small and privileged élite with a high sense of its own calling. A text from ancient Egypt says of scribes (designation/qualification for teachers) that 'their mortuary service is gone; their tombstones are covered with dirt; and their graves are forgotten. But their names are still pronounced because of their books which they made, since they were good and the memory of him who made them lasts to the limits of eternity'. Another Egyptian classic, from the late third or early second millennium, contrasts a range of other occupations--barber, construction worker, gardener--unfavourably with the scribe (teacher) and concludes, 'behold, there is no profession free of a boss--except for the scribe: he is the boss.'

As I indicated earlier the role of the teacher in ancient Israel is not as clear as we might hope. We have practically no information on the education of the young in the period preceding the establishment of the monarchy.

But since early Israel society was primarily participatory and agrarian in which the basic structures were those of kinship, what was needed to prepare the child for his (note his) function in society was provided by the parents (mother included) and the extended family in which the elders played a dominant role, inculcating a traditional ethic. This is reflected in the occasional biblical statement that certain things are "not done in Israel." The role of these teachers would have been to establish commands and prohibitions which would have set forth certain ideals of character and conduct.

As Israel assimilated the remains of Canaanite culture of the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 B.C.) children of the wealthier and more prominent families of the city would have likely received a more formal education. It's appropriate that one of the earlier references to education in this period in Canaan pertained to tuition. A tablet discovered at Shechem in the Central Highlands, dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century, records the complaint of a teacher (who refers to himself as 'father'as in Proverbs) addressed to a parent delinquent in the payment of the equivalent of school fees.

The change to monarchy in Israel led to the demand for trained personnel to serve the state. One of the most important posts would be that of scribe. As the name suggests the basic responsibility of this position was to write. Quite obviously in a world where the art of writing was not generally shared by all--where it was a specialist occupation--those who could read and write had vistas of opportunity open to them that were not available to those without such skills. The scribe played an important role in the state--not just as a copyist--but he served on royal commissions, oversaw the running of the temple, took part in diplomatic missions and negotiated with foreign powers. Further he was frequently identified as a sage and served as a teacher. All of this because he could read and write.

All of this is unintelligible without projecting a fairly well-developed educational system set up in Jerusalem likely modeled after that of Egypt and Canaan. While the system of writing in Israel would have been less complex than the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the cuneiform of Mesopotamia from where we have recovered tablets of schoolboys' writing exercises--even though the Hebrew language had an alphabet--nevertheless writing would have been taught. An agricultural calendar inscribed on a small limestone tablet, discovered at Gezer in 1908 and generally dated to the early monarchy, has been widely interpreted as a schoolboy's exercise.

These scribal schools existed not only to teach writing but also to prepare the sons of the well-to-do for public service or a life at court. The emphasis was on correct comportment, etiquette, and public speaking. The literary models used for training in writing were most probably translated from Egyptian or at least based on Egyptian school texts. To judge by the extant examples of such texts, the instruction they contained would have emphasized such things as self-control, learning from experience, drawing lessons from the observation of nature. While it would be misleading to speak of it as secular in character, it had little if anything to do with religious traditions and cult.

A passage from the Apocrypha, Wisdom 7:17-22, gives some idea of the curriculum:

For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists,
to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements;
the beginning and end and middle of times,
the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the seasons,
the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars,
the natures of animals and the tempers of wild beasts,
the powers of spirits and the reasonings of men,
the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots;
I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me. 

Such a curriculum would have included astrology, zoology, botany, and psychology. Add to this what is found in I Samuel 16:18--music, rhetoric, and physical fitness--one ends with a liberally educated youth. Such an education is marked by a supreme confidence that a literary and practical education, leavened by moral training, produces balanced, incisive people, whole human beings, ready to be effective in life.

Further insight to the curriculum is found in the narrative about Daniel and his three friends. We read that they were "Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility, young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king's palace; they were to be taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans."

While I Kings 4:29-34 is a description of Solomon, it is also a description of a particular kind of person, given to letters and the arts with a particular international cast of mind--an educated person.

Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, children of Mahol; his fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He would speak of trees from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish. 

Note that while the Old Testament is hesitant to associate Israel's priests and prophets with their counterparts in surrounding pagan societies such is not the case with the sages--the educated. To show how well trained they were, they were shown to be superior to the very best, outstripping them. . . This indicated the international dimension of Israel's wisdom and curriculum and the confraternity of scholars.

The curriculum as we have described it makes no reference to religion. Was there a religious element to the curriculum? Here opinion is divided. Some suggest that these academic programs were politically pragmatic and devoid of religion. Such may have been the case initially but it is clear that in time these scribal teachers moved from the court to the temple and became interpreters of the law. This is the picture we have of them in the New Testament where Jesus encounters them. They were teachers if not practitioners of the law.

Isaiah and Jeremiah reflect the tension I mentioned earlier that existed between these sages and the prophets. Isaiah seems to make pointed references to these scribes when he writes that the Lord said of his people: "Their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote" (Isaiah 29:13). Here are teachers who teach by memorization but without inspiration. He continues "And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hid" (Isaiah 29:41).

A century later Jeremiah reflects a similar tension between himself and the scribes. He accuses the scribes of writing with a "false pen," turning the law of the Lord "into a lie" all the while saying of themselves, "We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us" (Jeremiah 8:8-9). Perhaps there is an adverse allusion to the teachers in the words: "For my peopleYare wise in doing evil, but how to do good they know not" (Jeremiah 4:22). It is clear that Jeremiah and the scribes disagreed about political matters - the scribes being pro-Egypt; Jeremiah decidedly pro-Babylonian.

But too much should not be made of this negative prophetic attitude which unfortunately still exists between the church and the academy. Too often prophets and scholars clash about religion and politics. Jeremiah notes that not only does God minister to Israel by way of the priest and torah, the prophet and the word, but also by the sage and wisdom. The sage--the teacher--has a role--an assignment--a contribution to make.

Such is clear in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. In Proverbs the fear of the Lord (idiom for religion) is identified as the initiation of and the choice part of wisdom. Here the teacher is to teach "shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young" (Proverbs 1:4).

In Ecclesiastes the role of the teacher is well expressed:

Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly. The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd. Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-12)

Clearly his material is more sapiential than sermonic and the spokesman (Qoheleth) is better addressed as teacher than preacher. Qoheleth taught what he knew to be true. He devoted considerable energy in research and in the packaging of his teachings. While he sought to express himself in "pleasing words," his teachings often retained their sting and he conceded that much studying is a wearying of the flesh.

In addressing Job the Lord elaborates upon the phenomenon of natures and a wide range of animals, noting the unique characteristics of each and challenging Job's knowledge of and power over them. Assuming the role of the teacher, the Lord utilizes the didactic method of interrogation. Clearly the intent is more educative than catechetical. As Anderson notes "none of them (questions) has any answer ventured by Job. But this is not because the questions have no answers. Their initial effect of driving home to Job his ignorance is not intended to humiliate him. On the contrary, the highest nobility of every person is to be thus enrolled by God Himself in His School of Wisdom."

Perhaps the best picture of a teacher (and incidentally the first reference to an actual school in Israelite literature) is found in Ecclesiasticus chapter 51:

Draw near to me, you who are uneducated,
and lodge in the house of instruction.
Why do you say you are lacking in these things,
and why do you endure such great thirst?
I opened my mouth and said,
Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. 

Put your neck under her yoke,
and let your souls receive instruction;
it is to be found close by. 

See with your own eyes that I have labored but little
and found for myself much serenity.
Hear but a little of my instruction,
and through me you will acquire silver and gold.

May your soul rejoice in God's mercy,
and may you never be ashamed to praise him,
Do your work in good time,
and in his own time God will give you your reward.

Ben Sira presents himself here as a worthy teacher. He invites prospective students to dwell in his house of learning so that their thirst would be slaked without going, perhaps to Alexandria, to study. Any possible objection to the high cost of tuition and lodging was met by the reminder that gold will come in return for the silver expended. Alluding to Isaiah, Ben Sira extends the invitation to "buy without money" so that the thirst of the human spirit will be met.

Any lecture on teaching in Israel would be quite incomplete without some reference to Jesus. As Mark observes, the people "were astounded at his teaching for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes." Here indeed is the master teacher whether Jesus is viewed more traditionally as a rabbinic teacher or more contemporaneously as a Hellenistic-type cynic sage -- an itinerant teacher, without a home, on the road, one who has deliberately abandoned the world by becoming homeless. As such, Jesus taught a kind of wisdom that mocked or subverted conventional beliefs. In the words of Mack, "Jesus was a scoffer, a gadfly, a debunker who could playfully or sarcastically or with considerable charm ridicule the conventions and preoccupations that animated and imprisoned most people."

Whether one accepts the Hellenistic or Hebraic model, Jesus was a liberating teacher. He both taught and embodied truth for he knew that it is the truth that makes us free.

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